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Mozilla is eliminating its advocacy division, which fought for a free and open web
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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I've been saying for years that Mozilla is a profit-driven corp, just like any other. If they operated at Google's scale, they'd be evil at Google's scale, as well. It's not the first time they've done something like this, and likely won't be the last.
Mozilla is a not-for-profit. Like hospitals, that doesn't mean they don't make profits, it's just that they have to reinvest most of them into the company and it's employees. Speaking of which, those activities are not free and they're not necessarily done just out of the goodness of their hearts. In these trying times in particular, I think we should start realizing that we have to be advocates and supporters for the things we believe in, or else they'll die on the vine. And when they do, we'll be left with the lowest common denominators that simply treat us all like a product.
Mozilla is the best of the big 4 browsers, it also isn't pushing the whole Manifest 3 crap down our throats. At this point I'm sticking with them until I'm convinced otherwise. I've changed before and I absolutely would again.
As for losing the advocacy group, it sucks, but if I were in a tough position where I had to choose between advocacy and development, I would stick with my core mission - a stable browser with the features that users want. There are other great Internet advocacy groups out there that do great work (and we need them more than ever). Of course, EFF is one.
In theory, this would be true. But in Mozilla's case, "reinvesting into its employees" means giving the CEO a pay raise in the same year they did huge layoffs. They may be not-for-profit on paper, but the actions from their execs are exactly the same as you'd see from any other for-profit corp. Being not-for-profit is just an excuse for shitty business practices and doesn't change anything in any significant way, imo.